Estamated PPD on an old p4 or old core2 duo?

[fireXtract]

What are your experiences on one or the other?

I was thinking of buying a old machine with one of these in 'em and slap a GeForce 9000 something with a few cuda cores and then i would have one machine folding 24/7ish.
Does the Linux folding have any setbacks, because the old machine would probably run better on that then Win 7 starter or whatever i'd put on it.

My current folding machine is also my gaming rig so that's why i would do this.

[frontier204]

My old P4 (Northwood 2.4 GHz) got around 100 PPD with the uniprocessor client. I also ran a Core2Duo E6300 (2.13 GHz 2M Conroe) that produced about 1000 PPD SMP folding under Linux.
If you have a GPU, don't bother CPU folding a Pentium 4. Just install a copy of Windows XP if you have one, then run the GPU only for 24/7 folding. Depending on how much you pay for electricity, you may want to check out if buying a more efficient computer right now will pay for itself over a long period of time folding compared to a Pentium 4.

You can't (properly) fold GPU on Linux. However, SMP folding provides much better points than on Windows, somewhere between 30% and 100% faster depending on your setup and the work units you end up with.

[fireXtract]

Ok so what would a cheap and efficient processor be?

[frontier204]

That really depends on your definition of "cheap" and "efficient". With the hardware you have, a relatively inexpensive upgrade would be to undervolt your Core2Duo or Pentium 4 and then pair it up with a GTX 450, 460, 550Ti, or 560 for 9000-13000PPD average at modest power consumption. Getting a CPU+motherboard+RAM to get the same 9000+ PPD would be more expensive than the GPUs I mentioned. You'll need to use Windows though because of the GPU folding.

If you have a budget in mind and know how much you'll tolerate on your electric bill, then we can help you with a decision.

[MARSTG]

these 2 word : "cheap" and "efficient" do not come together, ever, when we talk folding. Is either, or. Cheap would be a Phenom 2 X4, (my 965 is doing around 7700 PPD ) or you could go with a 9800GX2 that is good for 10-11k PPD but watch out for the heat production : not for folding in the summer. Folding on CPU with SMP client is the most efficient, any Athlon II X4 or Phenom II X4 could be considered a cheap setup. just tell us what do you think of and what is your budget and maybe we can give some more pertinent recommendations.